Bayley, Barrington J - Novel 10

by The Zen Gun (v1. 1)

  The agents of these mutilations were not hard to identify. Ikematsu paused, his shrewd brown eyes intent, as they came down again, the limitlessly lengthening lines slanting down like hawsers of steel sunlight. The cluster stroked the landscape midway to the horizon. It was moving sidewise, progressing towards him.

  Uncharacteristically Ikematsu tensed. But the lines vanished, as quickly as they had come.

  He continued on his way. This region appeared to have been thinly populated. So far he had found no one left alive apart from himself. But he would not rest until he knew what had happened to Sinbiane, even though there was no guarantee that the boy had materialised anywhere near him—or,' indeed, that he had rematerialised at all.

  A road ran from planetary west to east through meadows of bluish grass. A mile away to the west he saw a solitary house—the first standing building he had see for some time.

  He reached it in half an hour, approaching slowly and cautiously, to find that it was no more than a cottage. In a neatly tended garden furniture had been tumbled, mixed amid flowers and miniature trees.

  Ikematsu knocked on a door panel, finding no call plate. When there was no answer he attempted to slide the panel aside; it failed to yield. He pushed it; it swung inward upon hinges.

  He stepped directly into an empty room illuminated by a wide one-way window. The kosho halted. So as to be able to take in the nature of this room, he suspended all emotional reaction.

  A blue eye, distinctly human, stared at him from the surface of the wall opposite. In the wall to his right two equally human brown eyes were similarly embedded, but separated by a distance of about ten feet, one near the ceiling, the other, placed vertically, in the corner near the floor.

  The match to the blue eye Ikematsu found near the door jamb.

  But not until he had seen much else. There were human fragments fused throughout the walls, floor and ceiling. Ears, toes, fingers and young male genitals sprouted like pale fruits. Here and there the surfaces bulged, in shapes resembling a heart, a liver, or a pelvic bone.

  And running throughout walls, floor and ceiling, like an embossed design, were tiny pipelike protrusions: arteries and veins. Ikematsu stepped closer, inspecting the glistening surface. He saw a faint tracery, spreading over the wall like fronds.

  Nerves.

  Suddenly a whispering, muffled voice came from somewhere. "Uncle! This is me, Sinbiane! I am alive!"

  "Sinbiane!"

  "Yes, uncle, I am here. And Trixa too."

  "You can see me?'*

  "Yes."

  Ikematsu took up a position in the centre of the room and stared straight into the blue eye, paradoxically aware that Sinbiane must thereby have a double view of him, both front and back. "Tell me what you understand of your situation," he ordered.

  "I know what has happened, uncle," the hidden voice said. "Our bodies have been dispersed throughout the walls of this cottage. It is a strange experience. I am wrapped right round you. With each eye I look at the other eye."

  "Is there any pain?"

  "No, not even hunger."

  "What of your mental condition?"

  "I am all right, uncle. I have stayed collected. But if we get out of here my friend will need considerable psychological help. He is in a state of total shock."

  "That is because he lacks mental training."

  Taking care where he trod, Ikematsu moved to the window and looked out. The sky was clear of alien rods.

  Briefly he reflected. Apparently the intruders from the other facet were not content with simple analysis; they were trying to manipulate the world more positively.

  It was remarkable that they were able to disperse the boys' bodies while still maintaining the integrity of all the somatic systems, particularly the vascular and nervous systems. It said much for their own mode of perception.

  "Uncle," Sinbiane.said, "can we be restored to what we were before?"

  "Yes, you can," Ikematsu told him. "The surgeons on theImperial fleet would be able to put you back together again. But that will depend on their recovering this planet. At the moment when the aliens snatched us away, the flagship was under attack and had been boarded. If others have taken control of the fleet they will have moved it out of the danger area by now."

  To that, Sinbiane was silent. "I have no intention of lying to you," Ikematsu said. "Meantime you have a rare opportunity to practise mental flexibility. It should stand you in good stead when you train to become a kosho."

  "I never imagined anything like this happening, uncle."

  "I hope you do not expect the world to be limited by your imagination, nephew."

  Ikematsu paused again, still thinking. "Is there anything you can tell me about the beings who did this, or how they did it?" he asked Sinbiane.

  "It happened so quickly, uncle. It was all over in a moment. But I seemed to gain a mental impression of them. They are very confused. They don't understand our world, but they are trying to understand it. That is why they did this. They don't realize they are meddling with living beings."

  "They have no conception of discrete objects," Ikematsu

  agreed. "That is deducible from their own manifestations." In fact, he told himself, an act of this kind was probably not even possible in 'normal' space. They had brought their own kind of space with them. That was what appeared as the extending lines or threads.

  "Did you see the animal. Pout?" Sinbiariie asked.

  "No," Ikematsu replied quickly, immediately interested. "Why do you ask?"

  "He was here too. He cannot be far away."

  "Was the same thing done to him?"

  "I do not know. But I don't think he is here in the house."

  "I am leaving now to find the chimera," Ikematsu said. "I will return when I am able. Meantime, do not shame my abilities as an instructor by losing courage."

  Sinbiane did not reply as he strode from the room.

  It did not take long to locate Pout. The chimera was but a few yards farther down the road, partly hidden in a thicket of coarse long-stemmed plants.

  He was, in fact, incorporated into one of the plants, or vice versa. He was jammed in a squatting position, while the steins, entering at his buttocks, merged with his legs, his arms and his torso, emerging at knees, elbows, and through his abdomen and thorax. A large, yellow-petalled flower seemed to frame his face.

  His face. It was his face that rivetted Ikematsu's attention, while the chimera squirmed in dumb distress, glaring with huge piteous eyes. For in that face, set into it as if set in blancmange, was the zen gun. The gun was his face, or a part of it. The barrel jutted straight out in place of a nose, waving and poking towards Ikematsu, making the whole visage hatchet-shaped. The stock merged with and disappeared into Pout's pendulous mouth.

  After studying the spectacle Ikematsu leaned towards the chimera, hands on hips. "How you loved your toy! Now it is truly yours. But do you still want it?"

  - Pout waved his head vigorously from side to side, making the yellow petals shake as if in a storm. A howling wave of rejection emanated from his crazed brain.

  "NO GUN! NO GUN!"

  "If I succeed in relieving you of it, will you concede that the gun becomes mine? You must grant it to me willingly. Otherwise it stays attuned to you."

  The effort of communicating to Ikematsu seemed to have exhausted Pout. He sagged, sucking air into his throat round the intruding stock that nearly blocked his mouth. Slowly, his head nodded.

  "Good . . ." Ikematsu mused. "But how is it to be done . . .?"

  Tentatively he reached out a hand, touching the wooden barrel. Seizing it between thumb and finger, he tugged experimentally.

  Almost without resistance, the gun slid out of Pout's face. There was a plop as his features re-formed behind it.

  Pout began to cry.

  At last, kosho Hako Ikematsu permitted himself to exult, at last he held the zen gun in his hands.

  Zen in the art of electronics . . .

  Curiously there
was no trace of its contact with the interior of Pout's person. No slime or moisture. No body heat, only the ordinary cool warmth of friendly wood. Ikematsu turned it over and over, examining it at length.

  He knew its age: more than three Earth centuries. He knew its provenance: the zen master who made it had been a member of the order from which his own had originally sprung. The external appearance of the gun was a testament to certain cultural concepts: it seemed improvised, unfinished, crude, yet in its lack of polish was a feeling of supreme skill ... in the Nipponese language of the time it had wabi, the quality of artless simplicity, the rustic quality of leaves strewn on a path, of a gate mended roughly with a nailed-on piece of wood and yet whose repair was a quiet triumph of adequacy and conscious balance. It had shibusa, the merit of imperfection. 3nly incompleteness could express the infinite, could convey he essence of reality. Hence, the unvarnished wood bore the narks of the carver's chisel . . .

  These qualities were themselves but superficial excres-;ences of the principles on which the gun acted, principles so ibstruse in character that one dictum alone succeeded in u'nting at them: Nothing moves. Where would it go? Pout he chimera had succeeded in using the gun as an electric >eam to hurt or kill, without regard to location. But that was he most trivial of its capabilities. Only a kosho could unlock ts real, dreadful purpose . . .

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Ragshok's voice was slurred as he spoke to Archier. He had not been able to resist the intoxicating airs and beverages so freely available on the flagship.

  "We'll be in Diadem in less then two days," he said. "Listen, you could be useful to us. Tell us which are the juiciest worlds. Where we'd go to forestall resistance."

  "I'm your prisoner, that's all," Archier said dully. "Don't expect me to be a traitor as well."

  Ragshok took a long sucking drag on the foot-long charge cigar he was smoking. He grinned glassily at Hesper. "Work on him, love. Make him see the light. Simplex take it! I can offer you anything. Wanna be total dictator of a hundred worlds? Satisfy any kink you like? Come on, everybody's got his price!"

  Hesper snuggled closer to Archier and stared at the pirate distastefully.

  "Aaargh ..." Ragshok growled in his throat, his natural aggressiveness overcoming even the calming effect of the drug. "Who needs you, hn? Who needs you?"

  The door slid open with a bang. Ragshok turned, eyebrows lifted, as someone burst into the small sitting room where they were talking. It was one of the women in his band, a middle-aged virago who had been particularly bloodthirsty during the takeover. Her face was ugly with alarm.

  "There's a fleet ahead of us, chief!"

  "What are you talking about?" Ragshok's surprise was almost comic. He took the cigar out of his mouth, rolling it between thumb and finger.

  "It's on the radar. A big Imperial fleet!"

  Grumbling incoherently to himself, Ragshok lurched to his feet. He pointed to Archier. "Bring him to the Command Room."

  He ran through the door. Archier didn't need the scangun that was pointed at his head to persuade him to follow. He went willingly, and in the Command Centre found Ragshok already on the throne, his lieutenants, Morgan included, grouped around him. In the air in front of them there hovered the radar report.

  There was no doubt of it. The oncoming blips were in standard Star Force formation, and there were more of them than Ten-Fleet could currently boast. In fact, from the identifying symbols in the top left of the image Archier knew it to be Seventeen-Fleet.

  Swivelling the throne, Ragshok glared at Archier. "So this is what you've been keeping quiet," he accused, speaking the words round the huge, puffing cigar. "Diadem is defended."

  "I don't really understand it," Archier admitted mildly. "No fleets are stationed in Diadem. The last I heard, Star Force had been ordered to stay away altogether." He smiled faintly. "That's Seventeen-Fleet coming at us, and she's nearly up to strength. You'd better surrender. Maybe you'll be treated leniently—given remedial treatment, given homes in Diadem, even."

  "Made tax slaves, you mean. They haven't even attacked yet, and they won't when we put you onscreen to reassure them."

  "I'm afraid they will, whatever you make me say. We're supposed to be somewhere else. Remember those funny cobweb things that were making people disappear? We are supposed to be investigating that. Turning up like this makes us look like a threat. You see," he explained after hesitation, "there's been a civil conflict inside Diadem. They probably think we're aiming to mix in it. They must think it, in fact, or they wouldn't be coming out to meet us."

  The radar picture suddenly disintegrated into a three-dimensional cross-hatchwork. Then the operators briefly obtained a single magnified image of one of the dreadful front-line-o'-wars, already extending its immensely long gun barrels.

  "They outgun us," Ragshok muttered.

  "Fight 'em, chief!" Morgan urged. "We've got plenty of guns too. They don't outgun us all that much."

  "They know how to use what they've got, you fool, and we don't!" Ragshok retorted. He took the cigar from his mouth and flung it away. "We'll be smashed to pieces if we stay in formation like this. Order the fleet to disperse. Every ship to avoid contact as best it can and make its own way into Diadem. We can exert some leverage there. Civilians are always soft-bellied."

  When he heard this, Archier's jaw dropped. "You don't know what you're doing!" he yelled.

  "SHUT UP! Get him out of here!"

  He heard the order being relayed and was still protesting as the virago hustled him from the room. Outside, he stared blankly at the lens of the scangun she held on him. How much should he exert himself, risk his life even, for the sake of these people?

  It was a grotesque death. But he would get his fleet back. . .

  He remained wrestling with his conscience when she vanished, with a clap of air.

  For a while he stood there. Then, slowly, he walked back into the Command Centre. It was empty, of course. With a dazed feeling, he took up the throne so precipitously vacated by Ragshok.

  Hesper found him there a few minutes later, having followed at her own pace. "Where are they all?" she asked.

  "Back in the Claire de Lune," Archier told her dully. "But dead, of course."

  While she continued to stare at him in mystification, he waved at the radar picture. "Do you see that? It's another Imperial fleet on its way to intercept us. To escape it Ragshok decided to scatter Ten-Fleet. But he didn't understand about the intermat, you see. I don't suppose hardly anybody outside Star Force does.

  "You see, the intermat only works inside the big feetol bubble that encloses the fleet when it's flying in what we call feetol formation. And it isn't really permanent. You have to return to your point of origin before the bubble disappears, otherwise you'll transpose back there spontaneously, in a horribly mangled state because there's no intermat kiosk to regulate the process. That's what happened when Ragshok dispersed the fleet and burst the bubble. Remember, his people had spread themselves around the fleet by intermat in the first place. I don't like to think what it must look like on the Claire de Lune right now."

  He wasn't sure Hesper took in what he said about the feetol bubble, but she was bright enough to grasp the bottom line. "You mean all Ragshok's people have been killed?" she said. "All of them?"

  "All except the handful who stayed aboard Claire de Lune from the beginning. Some of my own people must have got caught, too," he brooded. "Not everybody managed to get back to their own vessels after the takeover."

  He sighed. "Better get on to Seventeen, I suppose, before they blast us out of the galaxy."

  Using his Admiral's throne codes to override the crewless space torsion room, he succeeded in sending a leader tone burst to the flagship of the approaching fleet. Once contact was made the signal was good; they were only minutes away from gunnery range.

  In the other's torsion room, he found himself looking into the mild face of a koala. "This is Admiral Archier," he announced. "Would you please put me t
hrough to Admiral Tirexier."

  "Admiral Brusspert now has command, sir. I will try to get him for you."

  Brusspert? Archier frowned. He knew no such admiral. Very likely he or she was a promotion ... but surely Tirexier was not suspected of disloyalty? He could no more believe it of him than he would of himself.

  He thought the koala had made a mistake when a grinning pig face confronted him. The pig wore something on its head: it was with a shock that he recognised it, after a moment, as an adaptation of the ceremonial admiral's hat, with its peaked, bell-shaped dome.

  "Ah, there you are, Archier. Now then, what the Simplex do you think you're doing?"

  "Do I address Admiral Brusspert?" Archier asked after a pause.

  "Indeed, indeed. Now come to it! Our gunners are raring to go! You saw Crane and Oblescu, I suppose?"

  Archier swallowed. As concisely as he could, he related everything that had taken place. When he had finished, Brusspert sniffed dubiously.

  "A pretty unlikely tale in the circumstances, I must say . . . Still, we'll confirm the truth, or otherwise, of it sharp enough." The pig's eyes flickered to something in his range of vision. "Your ships don't behave as though they have anyone at the helm, at that. Zipping about like a bunch of pesky swamp flies. We'll chase them down and board. Meantime, make ready to receive our gig. We're coming over."

  "First," Archier said, "may I ask how a second class citizen comes to have the rank of admiral? Yours is an acting rank, I take it?"

  Brusspert stared at him. Then he broke into squealing laughter. "You haven't heard, then? Don't worry, you'll find out soon enough!"

  The picture vanished. The new admiral had cut him off.

  In the short interval before the gig from Seventeen Fleet arrived Archier made some attempt to put his flagship back in order. He called the living quarters and informed the vessel's denizens that it was safe to come out. Slowly the ship began to fill with sounds of life, and he was surprised once again to see his Fire Command Officer, whom he had presumed killed along with so many other animals. It transpired that Gruwert had spent the last few days hiding in a locker, and had ventured forth only when he heard voices he recognised. Thinner, and somewhat bad-tempered, he gulped down an enormous quantity of his favourite mash, and then reported for duty.